Polished Surface
by @manuel78 on Manuel
View my bio on Blurt.media: https://blurt.media/c/manuel78 
lyrics by me plus lyric generator
story based off lyrics below
- lyrics
(Intro - 68 BPM)
My pains are buried deep...
Far beneath the surface...
Where they cannot show...
(Verse 1 - 75 BPM)
So no one else can know...
Where a tear falls from time to time...
Because it's buried deep inside...
Where a crack forms from deep within...
And the pain oozes out...
(Chorus - 140 BPM)
Oh,it feels so bad!
When a crack comes up to my polished surface!
I mask all the pain!
I wipe the tears away!
So no one else will know!
(Verse 2 - 75 BPM)
This facade I maintain...
This smile,a shield of glass...
Hiding the silent crash...
Of a world built to last...
But crumbling within...
(Chorus - 140 BPM)
Oh,it feels so bad!
When a crack comes up to my polished surface!
I mask all the pain!
I wipe the tears away!
So no one else will know!
(Bridge - 90 BPM)
In the empty halls of my own design...
The echoes of the ache are all I find...
A perfect statue with a fractured spine...
Bleeding out in secret,all the time...
(Outro - 68 BPM)
So no one else...will ever know...
Beneath the polished surface...
I wipe the tears...
Away...
story
The Polished Surface
In the perfect silence of his penthouse apartment, the only sound was the whisper of his own breath and the low, almost subliminal hum of the city forty stories below. The view was a panorama of glittering ambition, a grid of light and steel that Marcus Keating had conquered. He stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, a silhouette of success. His reflection showed a man in his late forties, hair impeccably silvered at the temples, jawline firm, eyes… unreadable. Inside, a private, haunting melody played on a loop, a sound no one else would ever hear.
My pains are buried deep… The thought was a familiar whisper, a truth etched into the marrow of his bones. It wasn’t a dramatic statement, but a simple fact of his geography. His hurts—the betrayals, the cutthroat compromises, the loneliness that was the tax on this view—were interred in a private catacomb. Far beneath the surface… The surface was the man in the window, the one on the magazine covers, the calm voice in the boardroom. Where they cannot show…
A deep, rhythmic pulse began in his chest, a private war drum. He could feel the slow, ominous pressure of it, the bassline of a lifelong anxiety. He had become a master geologist of his own soul, mapping the fissures, monitoring the tremors. So no one else can know… This was the first and last rule. Vulnerability was a luxury, and luxuries were weaknesses competitors exploited.
He could feel it, even now. A pressure behind his eyes, a tightness in his throat that had no origin in the present moment. It was ancient sediment, shifting. Where a tear falls from time to time… It never reached his cheek. It was an internal event, a saline leak contained within the sealed chamber of his self-control. Because it's buried deep inside… The containment was the work. The constant, exhausting work of being Marcus Keating.
But containment was imperfect. Stressors acted like seismic shifts. A hostile takeover bid. The anniversary of his father’s funeral, a man he’d never understood and now never could. A fleeting, forgotten memory of a simpler life. Where a crack forms from deep within… It was a hairline fracture, invisible to the outside world, but to him, it was a canyon opening up. And the pain oozes out… Not as a scream, but as a cold seep of despair, a sudden, hollowing doubt that threatened the integrity of everything he’d built.
This was when the internal tempo would violently shift. The slow, tribal dread would erupt into a frenetic, internal chaos. It was a private, punishing club where the only patron was his panic. A driving, techno beat of pure anxiety would hammer against his ribs. A symphonic bass of dread would vibrate in his gut. A lone, wailing trumpet of despair would sound in the hollow of his skull.
And over this internal cacophony, his own voice, raw and powerful with the effort of suppression, would roar.
Oh, it feels so bad! It was the only honest admission he allowed himself. The feeling of the crack breaching the meticulously maintained exterior. The terror of exposure. When a crack comes up to my polished surface!
His entire being would become a crisis unit. I mask all the pain! The smile, practiced a thousand times in mirrors, would click into place. The voice would steady, adopting its familiar, authoritative timbre. The eyes would focus, sharp and present. I wipe the tears away! The internal weeping was stanched with sheer will, blotted out by a flood of distracting focus—another email, another call, another problem to solve.
The goal was absolute. So no one else will know! The board, his employees, his few social acquaintances, the woman he dated who saw only the curated version of him—they could not, must not, see the fault lines.
The storm would pass, leaving him shaken but intact. The music in his mind would drop back to the slower, more insidious rhythm. He’d survey the damage in the quiet aftermath. This facade I maintain… He’d think of it as a building, a glittering corporate headquarters of a self. This smile, a shield of glass… Transparent in its falsity to him, but impenetrable to others. Hiding the silent crash… Inside, it was all rubble and echoing halls. Of a world built to last… He had built it to be eternal, impervious. But crumbling within…
And the cycle was relentless. Another stressor, another tremor. The high-speed internal chaos would return, the driving beat of shame and fear. Oh, it feels so bad! The shame of feeling this way when he had so much. The fear of being discovered as a fraud, not in business, but in humanity. When a crack comes up to my polished surface! The polished surface was everything. It was his currency, his armor, his identity.
The mask would snap on, a reflex born of decades of practice. I mask all the pain! The performance was flawless. He could give a keynote address while this private hurricane raged. I wipe the tears away! He’d swallow the metallic taste of panic, force his breathing to evenness. So no one else will know!
In the deepest, most silent hours, when even the city’s hum seemed distant, he would sometimes allow himself to step behind the facade. The frantic music would cease. There was only the sound of his own truth, echoing in a vast, empty space. In the empty halls of my own design… He had constructed this magnificent prison himself, room by room, achievement by achievement. The echoes of the ache are all I find… Every footstep reverberated with loneliness. Every polished surface reflected a hollow man.
He saw himself then with a devastating clarity. A perfect statue with a fractured spine… Admired from a distance, seemingly whole, but incapable of true movement, of genuine support, on the verge of collapse under his own weight. Bleeding out in secret, all the time… The life was leaking out of him, not in a dramatic gush, but in a slow, constant seep of unmet needs and unvoiced sorrows.
The energy would finally bleed away, leaving him spent. The internal soundscape would reduce to its most basic elements: a single, repeating note of profound fatigue, and the slowing, weary beat of his own heart. The man who commanded boardrooms and markets was reduced to a shattered whisper in the dark.
So no one else… will ever know… It was a vow, a curse, and a life sentence.
He looked once more at his reflection in the dark window, the city’s lights glittering like indifferent stars behind the image of the impeccable man.
Beneath the polished surface…
He took a final, slow breath, the act of will that pushed everything down, back into the deep.
I wipe the tears…
He turned from the window, his face serene, his posture perfect, ready for the world.
Away…